I got to the ridge at the above the saddle between pk 6000 and another one and my plan was to sneak down into West Fork Bear Creek from there. Except the view was terrifyingly steep without ropes. I had come from peaceful rolling terrain with a few deer hopping around abruptly to brush city with steep walls everywhere. The final blow was even though I could see that I had a chance to the creek, the distance to the falls on the topo was quite far. And my primary objective being peak 5014, so I travelled on.
At pk 5014, I stopped for a bit to play in the candy land of rocks and then continued on down the ridge. The bumps along this ridge were getting to me and I knew of a point south of me that not only looked difficult, but I knew from Google that it was a significant obstacle. So I went off the ridge down a super steep hill towards Devils canyon to just below a significant canyon with bigtime drops. I walked up to see if I could get a picture, but was blocked easily by some smaller drops.
After that I went down the creek in the drainage, but closing in on Devils canyon I encountered a 100ft vertical drop...feeyuck. It was fortunately an easy bypass thanks to the Station fire and kind of a race down Devils canyon to pass the crux before rainfall...course there was a lot of water in the canyon. After the crux I settled down, and the next morning started afresh. I thought I was in the clear, but the canyon was about to run out commencing in a super long swim. A flight to higher ground revealead that I has simply missed the exit point.
From there on, it was an easy stroll to the West Fork with the sun finally coming out at the end.
